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Tell the Senate:
Block and resist Mike Pompeo’s confirmation as Secretary of State.
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It's outrageous. Trump just fired Rex Tillerson, one of the few people left in his cabinet who was willing to speak out against Vladimir Putin.1 But even more egregious is that Trump nominated Mike Pompeo, a xenophobic, pro-torture, climate-denying war hawk, to replace Tillerson.2
The mission of the Department of State is to build diplomatic relationships with foreign countries and to represent the United States at the United Nations. If Trump succeeds in anointing his pro-war lapdog Mike Pompeo, it will be disastrous for U.S. diplomacy and could undermine years of negotiating for peace with Iran. Pompeo’s nomination must go through Senate confirmation, which is why it is so important that we all speak up now.
Pompeo has been outspoken in his opposition to the Iran Deal, a historic agreement between the United States, Iran, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom that keeps Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, since its initial negotiations in 2015.3 When Trump threatened to completely pull out of the accord last year, Tillerson was reportedly one of the few people who kept him in line.4
Instead, Trump took the symbolic step of decertifying the deal and called on Congress to pass legislation to break our international commitments under the agreement. Democrats in Congress blocked Republican efforts to do what Trump asked, but now, Trump is saying that if he doesn’t get his way by May 12, he’s going to unilaterally tear up the deal.5
European allies have been working to try to meet Trump’s demands without violating the deal. Tillerson’s Department of State was leading negotiations on those modifications.6 Now, if an outspoken opponent of diplomacy like Pompeo takes the lead, there may be no one standing in the way of Trump dismantling the agreement. What’s more, Pompeo has lambasted Iran in the past – comparing the country to ISIS in a speech in October7 and colluding with hawkish special interests.8 If he is confirmed as our nation’s chief diplomat, he might just single handedly put our country back on the path to a devastating war with Iran.
Pompeo doesn’t just lack the restraint and common sense not to lash out at countries as the U.S. tries to build diplomatic relationships with them, his positions on torture and track-record of making anti-Muslim statements would seriously undermine the United States position in the world.9 He’s also a leading supporter of expanding domestic spying programs and wants to supercharge the NSA’s bulk collection of metadata.10 What’s more, Pompeo praised the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, which was one of Trump’s biggest failures in international relations. As the former president of an oilfield production business closely affiliated with Koch Industries, Pompeo has also been the number one recipient of Koch money since he was first elected in the Tea Party wave of 2010.11
There is no way the Senate should confirm someone so vastly unqualified – and so deeply in the pocket of corporate special interests – to serve as secretary of state. Click the link below to tell the Senate to block Pompeo’s confirmation.
- Kaili Lambe, CREDO Action
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